The UK regulator the CMA has revealed the responses to its provisional findings over Microsoft's planned $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The regulator believes the deal would pose a risk to competition and has called on Microsoft to offer remedies to counter its concerns. The regulator prefers structural remedies, such as selling off the Call of Duty IP. However, Microsoft has proposed behavioural remedies, specifically offering Call of Duty to multiple platforms over the next ten years.
Microsoft, Sony and Activision Blizzard's response to the findings have been revealed in full, and repeat many of the arguments that the companies have made already. Microsoft insists that the deal will not give it the power to foreclose PlayStation, highlighting the console's popularity and arguing that Call of Duty isn't sufficiently big enough to cause a large enough shift. It repeats its pledge to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, regardless. It also believes the CMA has made a 'fundamental and obvious error' in its calculations over the deal.